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Healthy growth is critical to the future of any business - too many rash decisions can lead to the demise of a family business. Author Jennifer Pendergast provides readers with practical knowledge to help determine whether to grow, what type of growth is healthy and sustainable and what the future potential is for any business.

The risk of stunted growth and development is affected by the context in which a child is born and grows. This includes such interdependent influences as the political economy, health and health care, education, society and culture, agriculture and food systems, water and sanitation, and the environment. Here, we briefly review how factors linked with the key sectors can contribute to healthy growth and reduced childhood stunting. Emphasis is placed on the role of agriculture/food security, especially family farming; education, particularly of girls and women; water, sanitation, and hygiene and their integration in stunting reduction strategies; social protection including cash transfers, bearing in mind that success in this regard is linked to reducing the gap between rich and poor; economic investment in stunting reduction including the work with the for‐profit commercial sector balancing risks linked to marketing foods that can displace affordable and more sustainable alternatives; health with emphasis on implementing comprehensive and effective health care interventions and building the capacity of health care providers. We complete the review with examples of national and subnational multi‐sectoral interventions that illustrate how critical it is for sectors to work together to reduce stunting.

This paper analyzes the existing relationship between economic growth and the monitoring of corruption and examines the possible outcome of the implementation of a State reform in order to weed out corruption. Growth is always higher when monitoring is high and therefore corruption eradicated. But growth declines when monitoring against corruption is not too high, say intermediate, so much that it makes an equilibrium with corruption and little monitoring a more growth-enhancing solution. It is also stressed that when reforms to combat corruption appear to be implausible, they tend to curb most productive investments. The model is estimated using a dynamic panel data approach for Italy. Italy has been plagued by corruption and in the late 80s and early 90s several scandals erupted which led to the well-known Clean Hands (Mani pulite) inquiries. Empirical results support the theoretical model.

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The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) model recognizes growth in infancy and childhood as a fundamental determinant of lifespan health. Evidence of long-term health risks among small neonates who subsequently grow rapidly poses a challenge for interventions aiming to support healthy growth, not merely drive weight gain. Defining healthy growth beyond "getting bigger" is essential as infant and young child feeding industries expand. Liquid-based nutritional supplements, originally formulated for undernourished children, are increasingly marketed for and consumed by children generally. Clarifying the nature of the evidentiary base on which structure/function claims promoting "healthy growth" are constructed is important to curb invalid generalizations. Evidence points to changing social beliefs and cultural practices surrounding supplementary feeding, raising specific concerns about the long-term health consequences of an associated altered feeding culture, including reduced dietary variety and weight gain. Reassessing the evidence for and relevance of dietary supplements' "promoting healthy growth" claims for otherwise healthy children is both needed in a time of global obesity and an opportunity to refine intervention approaches among small children for whom rapid subsequent growth in early life augments risk for chronic disease. Scientific and health care partnerships are needed to consider current governmental oversight shortfalls in protecting vulnerable populations from overconsumption. This is important because we may be doing more harm than good.

ABSTRACT The study aims to show the evolution of the percentage of schools adhering to the School Health Program (PSE) that carried out a collective activity on the Promotion of Adequate and Healthy Eating (PAAS) over the last five years and verify if there is a difference in this indicator according to adhesion to the Healthy Growth Program (PCS). Ecological study, developed with data registered in the Health Information System for Primary Care (SISAB). The performance of collective actions on PAAS from 2017 to 2019 increased. In 2020, there was a reduction in the actions carried out; and in 2021 there was an increase in actions carried out compared to 2020. The municipalities that received additional funds from the PCS had the highest percentages of schools carrying out collective activities on PAAS. The implementation of PAAS actions did not occur homogeneously according to the Brazilian macro-regions. It is concluded that there has been a strengthening of PAAS actions within the scope of the PSE, with a significant reduction of this action in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Getting additional resources from the PCS favored the development of actions on PAAS, which reinforces the importance of regular financial transfers.

During puberty, rapid, complex hormonal, physical and cognitive changes occur that affect body image and eating behavior. The aim of this cross-sectional study, a secondary analysis of data from the Greek Healthy Growth Study, was to explore associations of disordered eating behaviors and body image in 1206 10–12-year-old girls during pubertal maturation, with serum leptin and adiponectin levels, according to body mass index (BMI). Eating behavior and disordered eating were assessed with the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) and the Children Eating Attitudes Test Questionnaire (ChEAT), respectively. Associations of components of DEBQ and ChEAT with maturation according to Tanner Stage (TS) and levels of leptin and adiponectin were explored by univariate and multivariate regression analysis. Adiponectin levels in girls at TS 1 were positively associated with the "social pressure to eat" score of ChEAT. Leptin levels in girls at TS 4 were positively correlated with the "restraint eating" score of DEBQ, and the "dieting", "body image" and "food awareness" scores of ChEAT. After adjustment for TS and BMI, only "body image" and leptin remained significant. Further research may shed light on how these hormonal changes affect eating behaviors at various pubertal stages, contributing to "TS-specific" preventive strategies for eating disorders in girls.

The Bellagio Report on Healthy Agriculture, Healthy Nutrition, Healthy People is the result of the meeting held at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Lake Como, Italy, 29 October–2 November 2012. The meeting was science-based but policy-oriented. The role and amount of healthy and unhealthy fats, with attention to the relative content of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, sugar, and particularly fructose in foods that may underlie the epidemics of non-communicable diseases (NCD's) worldwide were extensively discussed. The report concludes that sugar consumption, especially in the form of high energy fructose in soft drinks, poses a major and insidious health threat, especially in children, and most diets, although with regional differences, are deficient in omega-3 fatty acids and too high in omega-6 fatty acids. Gene-nutrient interactions in growth and development and in disease prevention are fundamental to health, therefore regional Centers on Genetics, Nutrition and Fitness for Health should be established worldwide. Heads of state and government must elevate, as a matter of urgency, Nutrition as a national priority, that access to a healthy diet should be considered a human right and that the lead responsibility for Nutrition should be placed in Ministries of Health rather than agriculture so that the health requirements drive agricultural priorities, not vice versa. Nutritional security should be given the same priority as food security.